Companies making kids’ furniture tip-proof

HIGH POINT, N.C. — Government stats show that, on average, a child dies every two weeks due to tipped-over furniture, so the industry is making kids’ furniture safer.

Stanley Furniture includes anti-tip kits in all of its furniture that is more than 30 inches tall. That’s things like dressers, chests, hutches, and bookshelves. The kit is a simple system of hooks and wires that will pull a stud out of the wall before letting heavy furniture land on children.

“If your little kid–as they typically do–wants to become an explorer and wants to start climbing, it would basically stop that piece from tipping over,” said Neil Mackenzie, Stanley’s marketing director.

Product manager Ward O’Quinn said all of Stanley’s Young America line already meets a federal standard, and the anti-tip kits are a little extra.

“How far you exceed that standard is really left to you. We’ve taken some extra steps,” O’Quinn said.

The federal test involves a weight that most closely resembles a dumbbell with an elastic middle. Half of the 50-pound weight is placed inside of a drawer. The other half is placed outside of a drawer. If the backside of the piece comes off of the ground under those circumstances, it is not tip-safe.

Stanley’s line meets that standard, and the anti-tip kit represents those extra steps.

“It’s something that we can control, and we would like to make sure that the products that we’re putting out there in the marketplace are safe,” O’Quinn said.